Dr. Pomerantz applied for and was awarded a Whiting Foundation fellowship to support five days at the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany for the further development of her graduate course Literature for Children. The project goals are to: 1) identify, evaluate and collect high quality international children鈥檚 literature to promote intercultural understanding, 2) explore pre-service and in-service teachers鈥 attitudes towards these books and topics, and 3) increase teachers鈥 knowledge and use of international children鈥檚 books, particularly those that can broaden children鈥檚 views of the world and present stories in ways that demand complex, inferential thinking.
The International Youth Library (IYI) was founded in 1949 by Jella Lepman, a Jewish author and journalist who left Germany during the Nazi period and returned to help children and youth traumatized by the war. Lepman believed children鈥檚 books could be a way to build bridges between nations that had been in conflict during the war and develop tolerance and empathy. Lepman wrote: 鈥淟et us begin with the children to slowly straighten out this utterly confused world. The children will show the adults the way鈥 (). The IYI collects children鈥檚 literature from around the globe in order to foster inter-cultural understanding. The first and largest youth library in the world, it now contains over half a million books in 130 languages and the collection spans four hundred years.
The Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation awards fellowships to New England professors 鈥渢o study abroad or at some location or locations other than that with which they are most closely associated. The aim is to stimulate and broaden the minds of teachers so as to improve and enhance the quality of their instruction.鈥